The World As We Know It Is Over? 10 Insights on the Movie Biz
by Andy Lauer (June 23, 2009)
Westwood, CA. Photo by James Israel/indieWIRE
“The way we operate is being dissected and reassembled in front of our eyes,” noted Endgame’s James D. Stern in a keynote speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the weekend (which was published in its entirety by indieWIRE). Later that day, a panel of key industry players gathered at the fest’s Film Financing Conference to, as moderator and industry blogger Anne Thompson put it, “parse the desperate stage of the indie economy” right now. The panel, titled “The World As We Know It: Is It Over?,” included “Che” producer Laura Bickford, Christian Gaines of Withoutabox, Ted Mundorff from Landmark Theatres, “Notorious” producer Bob Teitel, and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch from Oscilloscope Laboratories.
The discussion touched on how to profit from Internet and VOD distribution plans, the increasingly uncertain fate of traditional media, the financial limitations of producing independent film in the current economic climate, and the recent formation of DF Indie Studios. Though realistic about the challenges facing the industry, all the panel members offered valuable insights on how to make the financing, marketing and distribution of independent films come together during tough times.
Here are 10 insights shared this weekend in Los Angeles:
1. Christian Gaines on the changing role of film festivals.
Insight: Festivals may be returning to their roots as a showcase for filmmaker’s work and become less of a platform for corporate sponsors and the industry to promote themselves.
“The 80s and 90s came along and there was a proliferation, a globalization and standardization of film festivals. All of a sudden film festivals had to serve other constituents besides simply filmmakers and audiences but also sponsors and the media, the film industry and so on… Every town has a film festival, there are film festivals of every possible genre, every possible niche that you can think of. And so now we’re kind of entering this world where nontraditional distribution platforms are starting to emerge and film festivals are definitely coping with and struggling with that new world. There’s real fear, I think, of obliteration. People think that technology will obliterate anything that came before it and I don’t believe that at all. I do think that film fess have to recalibrate, reboot, what their role is and why they’re important beyond simply promoting a sponsor’s product or beyond being a good junket for a few celebrities prior to the theatrical release of a big film. I do think that there are some fundamental core principals that film festivals are returning to such as presenting a film in the best possible picture and sound and honoring the artist by yielding to the experience, yielding to their work of art from beginning to end. I believe that film festivals are returning to that.”
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2. Adam Yauch on starting an independent distribution company, Oscilloscope Laboratories, during a recession.
Insight: Allow your company to grow at a manageable rate and don’t just rely on traditional marketing to get the word out about your film.
“The time we actually launched the company was just before the economy tanked so that was not actually part of the decision making process. But it actually worked out all right because the company’s already so small and we started looking at picking up inexpensive films and distributing them in ways where we weren’t spending too much on ads and finding other ways to do the press for it… And so far it’s been okay because we’ve been able to ramp up the company in a way that feels like it makes sense with where the economy is at, rather than being in a place where there’s already a company that has hundreds of employees and has to refigure how to deal with people buying fewer DVDs.”
3. Laura Bickford on the innovative VOD distribution model for “Che.”
Insight: VOD may be able to maximize a relatively small marketing budget’s impact.
“On ‘Che’ we couldn’t get a US distributor to be interested while we were shooting because it was in Spanish. And it wasn’t politics like a lot of people thought it might have been. It was that the US distributors make a huge chunk of change on pay television. Pay television deals cover their marketing costs on movies. The more your movie makes at the box office, the more pay television has to pay for it. But it’s only for English-language products. It was a financial reason that they didn’t want to spend the marketing dollars on it. We thought if we went to Cannes and won an award—which we did—that there would be a buyer… Fortunately we ended up with IFC films and approximately one million dollars in marketing money—no money to go to the Oscars—and happily at Landmark and VOD which was fantastic for us. We got to maximize all our marketing dollars by having people be able to buy it at home at a good price at the same time they went to the theater.”
4. Bob Teitel on the announcement of the formation of and speculation surrounding DF Indie Studios.
Insight: If DF Indie Studios is, in fact, real, the formation of an independent production company is a risky move but a hopeful sign.
“It’s like opening a car company now… People were so surprised that during these times a company would come out like that. I know everyone’s trying to figure out if it’s real or not, who’s in it and who’s not. It’s a positive thing if it is real. And I hope it is real for everybody’s sake.”
5. Laura Bickford on the state of the major studios.
Insight: The current distribution model of major studios is simply not sustainable and can not successfully be applied to smaller budget films.
“The reason the studios aren’t doing these [smaller budget] movies isn’t because of taste, it’s because the economic model didn’t work for them. And right now they know they’re on their way down, too. The studios are facing what the music industry was facing. They know that they’re dinosaurs, they know that they’re bloated and they know that they’re going to be over. But they don’t know when and they don’t know what’s going to replace it. Nobody knows how to monetize the internet, nobody knows how monetize video on demand and other forms of that, which is the way of the future shared with the theatrical experience… But they just don’t know where their revenues are going to come from… If we can show them how to make money on smaller budget films they’d be doing it.”
—five more insights from the panel are on page two.—
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I am the president of The European Independent Film Festival (ÉCU) – But more importantly I am still an indie filmmaker.
I believe many festivals have lost sight of what is the most important thing - The filmmakers. It drives me insane when I attend other film festivals, sit on their panels and attend their professional forums and all I hear is people talking about the “content”. It is NOT content. We are talking about peoples souls here. Making films is about bringing to the screen your dreams. An indie filmmaker dreams about making their film for years. They beg, borrow and max out their credit cards. The projects steals years as you create your film with passion, sweat and even a few tears along the way. Eventually you leave the edit suite with no friends, no life and definitly zero cash - and then people call your film, your dream - “content”? Nope that doesn’t ride very well with me.
Our goal with The European Independent Film Festival is to discover the very best independent filmmaking talent from around the World, give it and audience and help to promote the filmmakers whose talent deserves recognition. There are many creatively directed, beautifully photographed and intelligently written films that don’t make it to the ‘Hollywood-swamped’ theaters because they lack financial support. We strive to find these independent filmmakers and give them the opportunity to screen their fresh, innovative and free spirited films in front of large international audiences.
One of my primary goals is to ÉCU is a rewarding experience for the filmmakers (we don’t have the cash nor time for bling, bling). We’re offering workshops, discussion panels with the audience and the chance to network with the industry professional who attend The European Independent Film Festival searching for new projects and raw talent.
I totally agree with Christian Ganes. Festivals need to return to their roots as a showcase for filmmakers works – we have the possibility to share time with the story - tellers of our generation - what a pleasure.